


The Game

by pokeranger21



Series: Living a life of crime [1]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23350837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pokeranger21/pseuds/pokeranger21
Summary: few months after the Tracy's get their father back, a new criminal group appears. Even more dangerous than the hood.
Relationships: Tracy Family - Relationship
Series: Living a life of crime [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695280
Comments: 9
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

Cornel Casey was sitting at her desk, reading her latest report from Scott about International Rescue saving a family that was trapped after an earthquake. She frowned when she read a report about the hood, a few months ago, the Tracy boys along with brains went into deep space to find their father. The hood had managed to sneak aboard intending to leave them behind but he got caught, only to escape once he got back to earth.

She began to open a link to Tracy island, wondering if they could lend Kayo for a few days, but before she could, there was suddenly a huge flash and a sound of rumbling before darkness.

*Tracy island*

"w-with these new u-upgrades, h-hopefully we'll be a-able to detect the h-hoods technology," Brains said as he watched MAX install upgrades into thunderbird 1.

"I hope so brains, he was really close to shooting me out of the sky," Scott said and rubbed his arm that was in a sling.

suddenly the global emergency alarm went off and Scott ran up the hanger stairs to the lounge followed by Bains.

"what's going on John?" Scott asked while Alan, Gordon, Virgil, and Kayo gathered around.

"A GDF facility has been attacked, many officers are wounded, they are asking for assistance for looking for survivours" John explained. Scott paled, who would be brave enough to attack a GDF base?

"Alan, you take Thunderbird 1, Virgil, Gordon, and Kayo will follow you in thunderbird 2. Thunderbirds are go!" Scott commanded and each of them went to their respected lifts and soon were off.

When the boys and Kayo arrived at the GDF base, there were flames everywhere. All around the GDF officers were helping the injured into planes to be taken to hospital. Suddenly they all saw a person on a stretcher that caught their breath.

"Cornel Casey," Virgil said and ran over to the women lying on a stretcher with his brothers close behind him. She was unconscious with blood dripping from her head.

"will she be ok?" Virgil asked the officer that was pushing her

"she'll be fine, she didn't sustain too many injuries," he said and pushed her into the awaiting plane

"who would do such a thing?" Alan wondered

"the answer is right behind you" a voice from behind them called out and all three brothers along with Kayo and the remaining GDF officers turned and saw eight figures standing in a line, their arms crossed and their capes blowing in the wind. Each of them wore different colors; red, blue, green, yellow, indigo, white, black and pink. they couldn't make out anything else as they were wearing masks. The remaining GDF officers trained their weapons on them, but they didn't avert their attention from the Tracy's

"you did this," Kayo said with venom

"yes, and you must be International rescue, we've heard a lot about you from the hood," the red one said in a bored voice

"why would you do this" Gordon yelled at them, they gave no response

"Enough! Surrender now and the GDF will go easy on you!" captain Rigby demanded. The blue one gave a small chuckle.

"Now why would we do that? The game's just begun" he said in an amused voice and with that, they disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapters will be much longer. (hopefully)


	2. Chapter 2

"Who were they?" Kayo wondered as she, Virgil, Alan, and Gordon entered the lounge. As soon as the strangers left they tried to search for them, but couldn't find anything, not even with John helping, all they left was a strange mark on a wall. Other than that they managed to get all the remaining survivors out and captain Rigby was put in charge until further notice, he assured them that they'll continue the investigation and Kayo would be on standby if needed.

"I've analyzed the mark, it's nothing special really. It's an octagram and in Islam, it means seal of the prophets" John explained, his hologram coming from his portrait where he gave Scott and Brains a brief rundown of the mission. He began to pull up several images of the same mark on walls, floors, and even cards. "the same mark appears in other places but there isn't much detail. I've asked lady Penelope to look into more detail"

"I'm afraid there isn't much to explain John," Penelope's said as her hologram appeared "apart from the fact that the same symbol appears in other places that have been robbed recently, aLthough every time theY rob a place they seem to know where every security camera is as they were all destroyed. Even the hidden ones."

"how long have they been doing this for?" Gordon asked

"for 2 years at most, but they mostly work in the shadows, this is the first time they've made an appearance"

"what about the security guards?" Alan asked

"all knocked unconscious. Although they appear to be robbers but I have a feeling they are much more than that."

"I agree," Virgil said resting his elbows on his knees "after all they attacked a GDF base. Besides the hood who has the guts to do that?"

"and why?" Alan added

"to get your attention" suddenly the images that John had brought up disappeared and was replaced by a bigger version of the eight-pointed star.

"how..." Scott was cut off by a laugh

"your systems are easy to hack into"

"why would you attack a GDF base?" Virgil demanded standing up

"like we said: the game's just begun. And there's much more still to come"

"what do you want," kayo asked, buying time as Brains and John were trying to find the signal.

"you'll find out soon enough, and don't bother trying to find us. You never will. Till next time international rescue" and with that, the star disappeared.

"Brains? John?" Scott asked turning towards them.

"no luck Scott, these guys know what they were doing. They managed to bypass our systems undetected" John responded

"how did they hack into our systems. I thought we upgraded them ever since the mechanic managed to" Gordon wondered

"w-we did. h-he helped me u-upgrade them before h-he left" Brains said, still tapping away at his tablet. "I-I can ask him t-to come back i-if necessary"

"you do that Brians, we need all the help we can get. Obviously these guys are good, we have to hope the hood doesn't find out bout this" Scott said and knowing that with Havoc was still in GDF custody and Fuse or Clarence had given himself up the hood needed more people to cause destruction.

"too late Scott, the news about the GDF base being attacked has spread like wildfire, it's everywhere now. It won't be soon before the hood knows about this if already doesn't" Penelope said, cutting into his thoughts.

"Alright then. Penelope, do you think Parker could help us? his past might be helpful in this situation" Kayo asked

"'ll be delight'd to help kayo. Can't let myself get rusty" Parker said as he appeared next to Penelope.

Suddenly Kayo's communicator went off.

"Hello?" she asked cautiously

"Kayo, we have a lead on the attackers" Rigby's voice was a relief to everyone

"already? how?"

"well, they actually left us a note saying that they'll be at the National History Museum in New York to steal a priceless jewel on display"

"that's strange, why would they tell us?"

"not sure, but could you check it out?"

"I'm on my way"

"Kayo, be careful, we don't how dangerous these guys are" Scott warned her

"I'll be careful" she promised and went down to Thunderbird Shadow's silo.

"in the meantime, I'll see what I can-" suddenly John's hologram disappeared.

thunderbird 5*

"EOS, what happened?" John asked his AI, staring at the space where the faces of his family had suddenly disappeared.

's-s-sorry john but-" suddenly EOS started to flash red, then white, and yellow and back to red.

"EOS?" John asked turning towards her

"J-J-John" EOS said before she went offline

"EOS? EOS! this isn't funny" John said when suddenly 5's computer started to flash and alarms went off. John was suddenly thrown to the side, he cried out in pain as a box rammed into his ribs.

"what's going on?" he wondered shoving the box away from him tried to open a link to Tracy island. "Thunderbird 5 to Tracy island...come in". No luck. all he got was static, he then tried his sash but still couldn't get a response. Suddenly all the lights flashed red and his screens around him were turned off and everything was replaced by the octagram. "who are you?" he said to himself before the gravity cut off.

Tracy island*

everyone stared at John's portrait after he disappeared.

"what happened?" Alan asked.

"Brains?" Virgil asked the scientist who didn't answer as he was busy tapping away at his tablet. Suddenly the lounge went red as alarms went off, alerting the family that something was wrong. Scott ran to his dad's desk and started to tap away at the computer and the others watched him anxiously.

"Alan, Virgil suit up quickly and get to Thunderbird 3" Scott commanded not looking up from the screens.

"Scott?" Virgil asked

"Thunderbird 5 is falling out of orbit"


	3. Chapter 3

Quickly Virgil and Alan made their way to thunderbird 3 and prepared to launch.

"how do you think thunderbird 5 fell out of orbit?" Alan asked as he guided his bird out of it's hanger

"no idea, it could be the guys who blew up the GDF base" Virgil commented as thunderbird 3 left the atmosphere.

"These guys are really dangerous aren't they?" Alan said with fear in his voice. Virgil didn't answer knowing that if he did, his voice would hold the same amount of fear as alan's instead he watched as they came closer to a falling Thunderbird 5. Alan quickly activated the arms on thunderbird 3 to catch it.

"Thunderbird 3 to Thunderbird 5. John, you do read me?" Virgil said into the comms but received no answer "I don't like this" Thunderbird 3 soon got thunderbird 5 back into orbit.

"ok, I'm going to hold it here, you have to enter and reactivate 5 so it stays here" Alan told Virgil not taking his eyes off Thunderbird 5.

"FAB" Virgil said and left to grab his helmet and an astroboard, soon he was surfing towards 5. He entered the access code and found boxes scattered everywhere. 'John's not going to be happy' he thought, he knew his little brother had OCD, his bedroom was always the neatest when they were kids. He carefully made his way to the control room and found John on the floor unconscious and ran towards him, checking him for injuries, luckily he found none, except for a bump on his head. He gently tapped his cheeks to wake him up, but John only groaned. Virgil decided to get 5 back online first as he knew Alan couldn't keep hold of it forever, he entered the gravity ring where the main control panel was located and pushed the red button and 5's lights came back on. Allowing alan to let go and dock thunderbird 3, soon EOS came back online.

"Virgil?, what happened? where is John?" she asked, turning her camera towards Virgil.

"John's fine EOS, except for a bump on his head" Virgil reassured her as Alan entered and joined them

"EOS, what happened?" Alan asked, looking around at the scattered boxes

"unfortunately I am unable to answer, someone shut me off" she said following them as they made their way back to John.

"I think john should stay planetside for a few days, just until his head gets better," Virgil said as he gently picked up John and carried him in his arms. Luckily for him, due to being in space so much John was lighter. "plus, I want to do a medical scan just to make sure there's no brain damage.

"do you think I should stay here?" Alan asked as they made their way back to 3.

"no, not at the moment at least" Virgil immediately answered, he didn't say anymore as he strapped John down in a seat and climbed into the co-pilot's seat. While he strapped John down Alan set himself about getting 5 on auto and grabbing EOS's holodisk so she would come too, soon they were heading back to earth.

"how do you think Kayo's doing?" Alan asked his brother as they entered earth's atmosphere

"Knowing her, she's probably got them on the ropes," Virgil said knowing how good their sister was at tracking down thieves.

*New York*

Kayo arrived at New York and parked shadow on the side of the museum, making sure to put it in stealth mode. She carefully entered the museum and found herself facing the back of one of the people that blew up the GDF base, all around her the guards were all unconscious, but not dead.

"so, you finally arrived Kayo or should I say Tanusha?" the thief said in a male's voice, "I thought you'd come sooner" turning around to face her. Now that she had a closer look she could see the thief was wearing a green jacket with a Griffin on the right shoulder, green shoulder pads and white gloves, a dark green belt with the star on a silver belt buckle, green pants and green boots. A green tricorne hat was on top of his head and a green mask that covered his face, he was currently clutching the jewel in his hand.

"How do you know my real name?" she asked, she hardly used her real name, only her adoptive family, the GDF, Penelope, her uncle and her father knew it.

"We have our ways," he said glancing behind her before he reached for a gun from his belt and shot a guard who was beginning to come round, the guard collapsed to the ground dead.

"Why did you kill him" she demanded not turning around

"Why not?" he shrugged, smirking coldly, she rushed towards him, but he simply flipped over her head and landed behind her, she turned around and saw that he was running towards the exit.

"oh no you don't," she said chasing after him, even though he was a villain, she had to admit. He had good reflexes. H expertly dodged cars and avoided bumping into people without slowing down but eventually, she managed to trap him in an ally.

"Nowhere to run now," she said walking towards him, he raised his arms and turned towards her. She realized that he had something in his other hand, she realized that it was his belt buckle. Smirking he pressed something on the side that released a grappled line that attached to the roof of the building next to her.

"Nice meeting you. Till next time" he said, mock saluting her and disappearing along with the jewel, she quickly got her grapple line and went after him. But once she got to the roof, he was gone, she looked around to see where he had gone, she looked down and saw a card with the star on it. She picked it up and flipped it over, all it said was 'the phantom pirates'

"Kayo, did you manage to catch the thief?" Rigby asked her snapping her out of her thoughts, she looked at her communicator.

"no, he got away," she said before cutting the transmission and summoning Thunderbird S.

*unknown*

The 7 phantoms were sitting in a booth at the back of a bar where people such as thieves, drug dealers and many more often exchanged information or generally hung out when they needed to lay low from the police, not that they would dare enter the place, soon the green one entered and placed the jewel on the table.

"Good job," the red one said picking it up and inspecting it closely, "our client will be very happy"

"you run into any trouble?" the black one asked

"Nothing I can't handle," the green one said sliding into the booth "so, how did the 'rescue' go?"

"not bad, their AI is second-rate compared to ours," the gold one said flicking a crumb off his shoulder pad.

"That reminds me, we got a new job offer if we accept we'll be made handsomely," the red one said

"who's the employer?" green asked taking a sip of his beer that had just arrived

"a man named the hood..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, so would you rather a list of their real names or having them interact with each other and they call each other by their real names?


	4. Chapter 4

John woke up to a massive headache, he slowly opened his heavy eyelids to find 6 blurry figures in front of him, he groaned.

"he's waking up!"

"Virgil do you have anything that could help him?"

"Yeah, hang on..."

suddenly the pain lessened and john fully opened his eyes to find his family staring at him with looks of relief on their faces.

"What happened?" he asked in a croaky voice, looking around the room he realized that he was no longer on thunderbird 5. THUNDERBIRD 5! suddenly memories flashed before him. Him talking to his family. Thunderbird 5's alarms going off. Seeing the symbol. he suddenly sat up only to send his vision swimming, a hand gently grabbed his shoulder and gently but firmly pushed him back down.

"easy little brother" Scott said as he looked at John "as for what happened, we were hoping you could tell us"

"where's EOS?" john asked, ignoring Scott

"she's here john," Alan said as he held up her holodisk and John let out a sigh of relief.

"you think you could tell us what happened?" Virgil gently asked and John paused to think

"well, after you disappeared, I asked EOS what happened but she went offline, suddenly my screens turned off and showed the star, then the gravity cut off and that's about it" John explained and listened as the others filled him in on how Virgil and Alan came up to rescue him and that he was off duty for a few weeks; at least until his ribs were healed.

Suddenly Kayo entered the infirmary.

"Kayo, did you catch the thief?" Alan asked with hope in his voice

"no, he got away," kayo said and everybody frowned, these guys were good if they were able to get away from Kayo, "but, I did manage to get the name of the group," she said

"what is it?" Jeff asked, having been briefed on what happened when he returned from the mainland and found john in the infirmary. still not used to hearing his voice, john jumped but luckily no one noticed.

"they're called 'the phantom pirates'"

"kinda fits if you ask me," Alan said making everyone look at him. "I mean, they steal treasures like pirates and nobody sees them do it"

Scott sighed "what I don't get is how they managed to hack into our systems, after the mechanic we were careful and now they just hacked it like it was nothing."

"How are we going to find them?" Virgil wondered, at that moment Penelope appeared along with parker

"I think I can help, parker told the GDF of some bars where criminals go and hang out, and after the run-in with kayo, we managed to get on of the thieves on camera entering one of these bars"

"then what are we waiting for? let's go!" Scott said

"I'm afraid it's not that easy Scott, taking down one group of criminals is tough but taking an entire bar full of them would be impossible. According to my hexpert at least"

"hmm, do think captain Rigby will lend us a few undercover agents?" Scott wondered

"possibly, why?" kayo questioned

"I have an idea..."

*Meanwhile*

The phantoms gathered around a table in their base.

"so the hood wants us to break this 'havoc' person out of the GDF prison?" White asked "sound simple"

"it's not," Indigo said and brought up plans of the prison "she's being held in the center of the prison and is being watched 24/7, her gear is being held here" he pointed to a point on the lower floor of the prison "and is heavily guarded"

"then let's pretend one of us gets captured," Blue said, his prosthetic arm twitched slightly as Yellow was making modifications to it "that way we can get info about the GDF while they 'interrogate us' and then once we have the info we want, send out on EMP pulse and boom"

"Not a bad idea," Red said and his pet eagle landed on his shoulder pad, he reached up and scratched it gently under its beak "now, who should get captured?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and now you get to know their names. yay.
> 
> also i thought i had posted chapter 5 here already because i posted it on ff.net and Wattpad, bunt now that i think about it i thought i would wait one or two days before i posted it here, but i guess it slipped out of my mind 😅

"I'll do it" black offered

"yo Chris you sure?" yellow asked, their ship was currently hovering over the roof of their next robbery, they had debated for a week for who would get captured and infiltrate the GDF base.

"come on Joel," Chris said rolling his eyes at his yellow clothed companion, "what could go wrong?"

"yeah, Chris can do it," indigo said "I mean it's not like they can find out our identities"

"Thanks, char, now anyone else wants a say in this?" Chris turned towards his white-colored companion. "Carly?"

"why not? I mean it's not like the GDF will be expecting us to break this Havoc person out anyway," Carly said adjusting her mask

"Remember, it's just the four of you, In and out." red said coming from the cockpit

"you got it, Mike," Joel said giving the leader a thumbs up

"here, I got the duplicator" blue said fiddling with a device as he entered, "Now make sure you duplicate the jewel first before you give the real one to Chris and make sure kayo sees you take it and then split up. Make sure you 'accidentally' turn into a dead-end and get captured"

"got it! thanks, Oliver" Chris said, taking the said device and putting it on his belt.

"Okay, you have roughly 10 minutes until the GDF arrive," pink said poking at a tablet, "here" she held out a small robotic spider. "once you arrive and the GDF prison, this will activate and I'll direct it to the main computer and get what we need. Then I'll shut down the power and you will break out, grab Havoc and her stuff, steal a GDF copter and go to the coordinates that we agreed to, meet the hood, get our payment and be on our way. We'll be waiting at the dropoff zone"

"But how will you know where to go?" Charlotte asked her and pink turned the tablet around and showed them the feed from the tiny cameras inside the spider.

"Thanks, Lillie," Joel said and took the small spider and also placed it on his belt.

"Also, we'll be able to hack into their systems to deactivate the cameras and give you enough time to escape. plus it gives us a chance to change their passwords!" Joel happily and the rest of them laughed and how the GDF would react at them no longer able to access their files.

"and we'll also disable the tracking device so the GDF and thunderbird 5 can't track it," green said coming out of the cockpit

"good call Emma," Chris said giving her a thumbs up and she blushed, glad her mask was hiding it

"ok, we have one shot at this, and failure is not an option." mike said and put his hand out "ready?" everyone put their hands on top of his and they all nodded

"oh, GDF and Kayo will be arriving soon" Lillie called out and soon, Joel, Chris, Charlotte, and Carly were off while Oliver, Mike, Emma, and Lillie stayed behind. They quickly cut a hole in the roof and after getting the signal that the security cameras were disabled they climbed down, silently knocking out any guards, soon they reached their destination, quickly Charlotte cut a hole in the display case and Joel quickly duplicated it and Chris quickly put the real in a hidden pocket and Joel held onto the fake one. Soon they heard engines and lights shone through the windows and a loud voice saying; "this is the GDF, we have you surrounded" not too soon and Kayo entered along with about 20 GDF officers, they quickly ran up the stairs behind them and Kayo led the officers after them. Upstairs there were lots of hallways leading to lots of different exhibits, they split up like they agreed; forcing the GDF to split up to, Kayo suddenly saw a flash of black and chased after him, knowing that he had the jewel. The others hid until the GDF left. Eventually, Kayo managed to catch the thief in a dead-end and managed to cuff him, but she led him away she didn't see the devious smile on his face. She gave him to the GDF and followed them in shadow to the prison to bring along the jewel. Back at the museum; Chris, Charlotte, and Carly came out of hiding a went back to their ship and flew to the meeting point.

The GDF brought Joel (they don't know his identity), still clad in mask and cape into a cell in the middle of the facility and forced him to sit on the chair in the centre of the room, as soon as he sat down, he felt the robotic spider climb down his leg and it disappeared into the vents.

"Alright, now let's get, started" Captain Rigby said sitting across from him and Kayo leading against the wall behind him, unfortunately for the GDF, they weren't going to get many answers.

'This should be interesting' Joel thought as he sat back in his chair

"why did you blow up a GDF base?" Rigby asked but was answered with silence

"Rigby, maybe we should find out his identity first," Kayo said and Joel panicked, Kayo walked over and reached for his mask, he turned his head away trying to escape but he couldn't. Kayo ripped off his mask to find...he was still wearing his mask. "what?" she questioned and looked at the mask in her hand and saw the detail om the mask. It was midnight black with glitter around the eye holes and the outer rims. She looked down at the mask to the one on his face and back. She tossed the other mask away and tried again only to have the same result.

"oh, I'm sorry were you trying to find out my identity?" Joel said in a mocking voice "you can only remove our masks once you know our identities"

"who makes your technology?" Rigby questioned, Joel didn't answer so Rigby continued to ask questions but only got silence as his answer so they decided to leave, they had just shut the door when the lights suddenly went off.

"what the?" he said looking around before turning to the closest officers "find out what's going on" he demanded and they ran off, suddenly the door flew open and Joel pushed past his captors who were too surprised to stop him, he then launched his grapple line and swung down to the lower floor.

"I'll go after him," Kayo said laughing her own grapple line and following him, her eyes widened as she realized that he was heading towards Havoc's cell.

'so they do work for my uncle' she thought bitterly speeding up but the black figure had already unlocked her cell and led her out the door. "Rigby, the black guy has released havoc, tell your men to stand guard over her stuff, that's probably where they're headed to next". She continued to chase after the figures when suddenly a heavy titanium door blocked her path. "Rigby, can you open the doors on level 3?"

"sorry Kayo, but these guys have hacked our systems. we can't do anything" Rigby yelled as he stared at the computers in the control room, all baring the star. "we're going to have to reboot them"

"then hurry up, in the meantime, I'll find another way," she said before turning around and going up a set of stairs. meanwhile, Joel and havoc had managed to get her stuff and were now on their way to a GDF copter, they disabled the tracking device and flew off.

"ok, why'd you help me escape?" Havoc questioned her companion as he set the entered the coordinates and put the plane on autopilot.

"the hood told us too and we agreed," Joel said, "we agreed to get you out of prison and drop you off and get paid. Plus we get to mess with the GDF thinking we're working for the hood. which we're not". Soon they arrived at the meetup point and Joel saw Mike dressed in his red clothing next to the hood waiting for him, as he landed the wind from the plane cause his cape to flap wildly, soon they exited the plane and walked towards them.

"ok Hood, we got Havoc out of jail. Where's our payment?" Mike demanded holding out his gloved hand and the hood took out an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to him, Mike opened it and carefully counted the money "pleasure doing business with you" with that he turned around and walked away with Joel following him, "any problems?"

"Nah, like you said; in and out" they looked up when they heard the sound of engines and saw the hood's ship flying off.

"we're clear," Mike said into his earpiece and suddenly their ship appeared above them and a hatch opened and two ropes dropped down. Mike and Joel grabbed one and the ropes slowly pulled them up and they were soon back on their ship.

"Welcome back guys!" Charlotte greeted them as the doors closed and the ship turned invisible again.

"did you guys get the information from the GDF?" Joel questioned taking off his mask

"yeah, tons! the others are looking through it right now" Charlotte said

"cool, I'll join you soon, going to grab a snack" Mike and Charlotte nodded and walked to the main section of their ship while Joel wondered to the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the mask thing was inspired by an episode of 'teen titans go' when I used to watch it.
> 
> Anyways hoped you enjoyed the chapter and remember to stay safe


	6. Chapter 6

Kayo stayed behind at the GDF prison to try and help sort out their technical problem but no luck, not even with EOS, Jhon said that once he was cleared to go back to Thunderbird 5 he'll keeping trying. He would have let EOS do it herself but didn't in fear of her trying hacking into something she shouldn't. Kayo eventually went back to Tracy Island and found everyone waiting for her

"John filled us in" Scott said as soon as she entered the lounge "you want to talk about it?" Kayo didn't answer as she sat down on the couch.

"not at the moment" she replied "at the moment we have to focus on catching those thieves"

"I'm afraid the GDF won't be able to help," Eos said as her avatar appeared "GDF computers are still down so they attempted to access their systems through their backup computer, but the passwords have been changed"

"Ohh, that's the evilest thing in the world" Gordon joked and everyone looked at him weirdly "what? I did that with John's computer once and boy, was he mad"

"and I still am" John growled glaring at him

"at least you got the jewel back right? That's good, right?" Virgil said trying to lighten the mood, but Kayo still looked sombre

"no, it was fake, they somehow managed to switch them," she said and sighed heavily

"Wow, they must be really good" Alan muttered

"ok, so the GDF are out of the question, so now what do we do?" Scott wondered

"hey, what if we pretend that we're some sort of criminals and we hire them to steal a fake jewel that has a tracker in it and follow them back to their lair" Alan suggested

"that's not a bad idea," Scott said, with the plan in mind they wandered off to relax in case they got called out again, Brains decided to contact the Mechanic to see how they could improve their security. Suddenly Jeff's desk started to flash and everyone came rushing back to see what was wrong.

"there's an earthquake in Taiwan, multiple people are trapped in buildings, they need our help" john informed them

"right, Scott, you fly ahead in Thunderbird 1. Virgil you follow in Thunderbird 2 with Gordon and Alan." Jeff commanded

"FAB" the brothers said as they ran to their lifts

Soon Thunderbird 1 and 2 left Tracy island and on their way to the rescue

"Woah" Alan said as he saw the collapsed buildings and fallen trees

"John, where are the survivors?" Scott asked

"there are at least 20 in the school, 10 people trapped in individual buildings and from what I can see at least 12 trapped families" John replied in his usual calm tone

"where are the rescue services?" Virgil asked

"they're busy on the other side of the city, they've asked us to take this side"

"FAB John. Virgil, you and Alan will work on the people trapped in the buildings, I'll save the families and Gordon will go to school. That sound good?"

"FAB"

"okay"

"got it"

"Alright then," Scott said after his brothers replied and flew Thunderbird 1 off towards one of the houses while Virgil landed Thunderbird 2 in a large clearing after confirming that it was stable, he donned on his exo-suit while Alan and Gordon configured the pods. After lowering the ramp he hitched a ride with Alan to one of the buildings while Gordon drove in the other direction.

"Hello? This is International Rescue! Can anyone hear me?" he called and to his relief, he could hear the faint cries of someone. "Stay there! I'm coming towards you!" Gordon carefully walked through the halls avoiding the debris as best he could, glad that he decided to leave the pod outside until he could determine if he needed it or not. He eventually reached a large classroom where at least 17 kids and 3 teachers were trapped, luckily they didn't seem to be too injured. "Hi, I'm Gordon from International Rescue, are you ok?"

"yes, we're fine," the nearest teacher said holding out her hand "I'm Anne Murphy; the principal"

"nice to meet you Ms. Murphy" Gordon shaking her hand "is anyone injured"

"no, we're fine. When the first quake hit I went around to tell everyone to evacuate but I ended up getting trapped here, I ordered the students not to move and wait for help"

"you did the right thing mam" Gordon then turned to the frightened children and knelt down so he didn't seem so intimidating "hey kids," he said in his usual happy rescue voice "I'm gonna help get you outta here!" the kids looked at each other before looking towards Ms. Murphy who nodded. Gordon then led the kids towards the pod "you know I never thought that I would have to go back to school once I joined International Rescue. Never the less that it would be Middle school" Gordon joked knowing that the kids needed a laugh and to his relief, he saw that many of the kids had smiles on their faces which helped the teachers relax slightly. As soon as they emerged from the school, they climbed aboard the Pod and Gordon drove them back to the module just as Alan and Virgil arrived.

"hey Gordon, good to see that your rescue went well," Virgil said

"of course, did you ever have a doubt?" Gordon joked

"well, you're here now. That's what matters" Virgil said and began escorting the teachers and students into the module so they could be taken to safety. "Ok, John. everyone's loaded up, is there anyone else?"

"Not that I can see, looks like you got most of them out. Rescue services say they can handle the rest" john responded

"Alright, then Virgil will take the survivors to the hospital so they can get checked out and meet up with their families, I'll head to San Francisco to pick up the Mechanic" Scott commanded

"FAB" the brothers responded as they climbed aboard their respective thunderbirds and took off. Meanwhile back as his base, the Hood laughed evilly at how well the Phantom Pirates had gotten Havoc out, but she refused to do anything until they got her brother out, but he was being kept in another facility meaning that they had no idea where he was. He stared at the card that they had given him after their recent meeting. He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he wondered if they would be willing to join him to help bring down International Rescue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this took so long, I've never written a rescue before and that's why it's so short and only focuses on Gordon. Plus I had trouble writing this, not sure when the next update for this will happen so be patient.
> 
> And as for why the mechanic is in San Franciso? He wanted to go sightseeing


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is what the thieves look like. feedback is welcome


	8. Chapter 7

It was around 2 hours later when Thunderbird 2 finally arrived back to Tracy Island, by then Scott had already picked up the Mechanic and was waiting for them in the lounge.

"Hey Scott" Virgil greeted his older brother as he entered the lounge with Gordon and Alan following

"Hey guys, what took you so long?" Scott asked smirking

"that's still not funny" Virgil groaned and rolled his eyes

"go wash up, debrief in 10 minutes" Scott ordered and the brothers rushed off to their respective rooms to clean up after their rescue. 10 minutes later they gathered in the lounge and waited for Jeff to join them.

"so, where's dad?" Alan asked Scott after they waited for 5 minutes

"he's with Brains and the Mechanic who are trying to find out how we were hacked" Scott explained

"well, he could be a while and we missed lunch" Gordon moaned leaning back

"Did someone say lunch?" they all jumped at Grandma's voice who was holding a pan of burnt lasagne in her hands "who's hungry?"

"I'm not. But Gordon is" Alan said quickly, Scott and Virgil nodded in agreement

"Nonsense. You boys must be hungry after that tough rescue" Grandma insisted as she brought the lasagne to the table "come on!"

"really Grandma, it's fine" Scott insisted smiling, but his brothers could see the fear in his eyes at having to eat Grandma's lasagne

"Alright. Who are you people and what have you done to my kind and generous grandsons?" Grandma asked, losing her patience and giving them the 'death glare'

"ahh-uhh...we...*sigh* we're right here Grandma," Virgil said and walked over to the table with the others following

"that's better" Grandma smiled as she watched them scoop the food onto their plates and eat, trying their best not to cringe. She knew she wasn't the best cook but she always got a kick at everyone trying to be polite to her and pretend to enjoy the food. Even the Mechanic did it! "Kayo was invited to Penelope's house for lunch so she won't be able to join you."

"Lucky her" Alan mumbled and he choked down a mouthful of food

After 5 agonising hours (well, more like 20 minutes) of digesting the lasagne, they were finally finished and were finally able to start debrief as Jeff arrived.

"Hey dad, have Brains and the Mechanic figured how we were hacked?" Virgil asked him

"not yet son. They say they have no clue how they got in without setting off any alarms"Jeff replied

"we'll let Brains and the Mechanic focus on that, we should start debrief," Scott said.

Debrief was over relatively quickly and the brothers wandered off to do their own things, Scott went to the gym, Virgil went to his piano, Gordon went to the pool and Alan decided to play chess with his dad while grandma went off somewhere.

Meanwhile, in Brain's lab, Brains and the Mechanic were still trying to find out how they were hacked

"I-I still don't understand h-h-how they got past your d-d-defences" Brains said

"Neither do I. I built those to make them unhackable. It doesn't make any sense" the Mechanic agreed, suddenly a monitor beeped and displaced a holographic image of the octagram

"w-what should we do?"

"I say we tap it" the Mechanic reached over and tapped the octagram and it immediately disappeared and displayed Mike who was in his outfit.

"aww, it appears that the great scientist behind International rescue needed help from a former villain" Mike mocked him, smirking as brains frowned

"I was being controlled. That does not make me a villain" the Mechanic growled

"Whatever you say!" Mike said smirking and raised his hands in surrender

"what d-d-do you w-w-want?" Brains demanded trying to hide the fear in his voice

"that's cute. The engineer trying to be brave, how adorable. As to your question for what I want, what I want is to give you a riddle of where we're going to strike next" Mike answered

"why?" the Mechanic asked suspiciously

"well, it wouldn't be a fun game if International rescue didn't take part now would it? Now listen carefully... you have 24 hrs to solve the riddle, once you do all you have to do is figure out what we want from there. If you do; we'll give you a clue on where the hood is hiding. Good luck" with that the transmission cut off leaving Brains and the Mechanic staring at the empty holoprojector.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, so the riddle will be revealed in the next chapter because I need to figure out what they're going to steal and from where. if you have any suggestions please write them in the comments


End file.
